Dates and Time in English
This question is essential for many English learners, but mostly for test-takers as the wrong spelling of date or time can lead to low results. Let us shortly review the subject of time and dates spelling in English.
Time
General rules
This is simple. You can use both 24H and 12H formats.
For example:
- 12:45 = 12 hours 45 minutes
- 12:45 p.m. = 12 hours 45 minutes
You can use all variants of contraction: p.m./a.m., P.M./A.M., pm/am, PM/AM. Nevertheless, for IELTS exam I prefer to use p.m./a.m.
What is 12:00 a.m./p.m.
The last confusing subject for time is 12:00 a.m. Is it midnight (00:00) or is it noon (12:00)? It is a tricky question because of strange logic with a.m./p.m. time. After 11 a.m. goes 12, but not a.m.
Examples for midnight:
- 23:00 = 11:00 p.m.
- 23:59 = 11:59 p.m.
- 00:00 = 12:00 a.m. (midnight)
- 00:01 = 12:01 a.m.
- 01:00 = 1:00 a.m.
Examples for noon:
- 11:00 = 11:00 a.m.
- 11:59 = 11:59 a.m.
- 12:00 = 12:00 p.m. (noon)
- 12:01 = 12:01 p.m.
- 13:00 = 1:00 p.m.
Dates
General rules
There are many possible ways to write dates, and all of them are right:
- 6 Sept
- 6 September
- 6 September 2019
- 6th September 2019
- the 6th of September 2019
- the 6th of September, 2019
- Sept 6
- September 6
- September 6, 2019
- Monday, September 6, 2019
- Saturday, 13 April 2019
- Saturday the 13th of April, 2019
- 6/9/19 or 6.9.19 or 6-9-19
- 06/09/2019 or 06.09.2019 or 06-09-2019
- 9Sept2019 or 6-Sept-19
- 04/13/19 or 04.13.19 or 04-13-19
- 04/13/2019 or 04.13.2019 or 04-13-2019
- Apr. 13, 2019
But for the IELTS exam, I recommend using contraction "DD/MM," for example, 6/9 for September 6.
Ordinal Numbers
It is common in English to use ordinal numbers, for example, 2nd or 25th. We have only four options here: "st," "nd," "rd" and "th."
Examples:
- 1st = first
- 2nd = second
- 3rd = third
- 4th = forth
- 5th = fifth
- 11th = eleventh
- 12th = tvelveth
- 21st = twenty-first
- 32nd = thirty-second
- etc.
